NBA, Players At A Stalemate

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 30: Commissioner of the NBA, David Stern announces that a lockout will go ahead as NBA labor negotiations break down at Omni Hotel on June 30, 2011 in New York City. The NBA has locked out the players after they were unable to reach a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The current CBA is due to expire tonight at midnight. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

(credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

NEW YORK — A few minutes before 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, a man with a rumpled suit and a black leather briefcase strode through the lobby of Olympic Tower. In a minute, he was out on 52nd Street, perhaps believing what he’d told reporters earlier was true.

“We did not have a good day,” David Stern had said.

But was this really the case?

The NBA and its players’ union had met for five hours in a bargaining session that was tinged with too much hope, mistaken for something other than what it was: a test of each side’s will, of how much season and money they were willing to lose in this negotiation over the future of professional basketball in the United States.